PAPAGUERIA 361 



tion of San Xavier; about another quarter are on, or south of, 

 Rio Altar or its tributaries in Mexico; the remainder or fully 

 one-half of the tribe are roamers of the desert, living in a pecu- 

 liar manner which is neither exactly nomadic nor exactly agri- 

 cultural, but a unique combination of these modes of life. It is 

 this half of the tribe — the " wild Papago " — that is of especial 

 interest to the ethnologist. 



During a considerable part of the year the " wild " Papago oc- 

 cupy rancherias or nominally permanent home villages; tribu- 

 tary to each rancheria there are usually several (sometimes but 

 one or two) temporales, or temporary farm domiciles ; and many 

 of the families or family groups have winter domiciles, either 

 for hunting or for pottery-making, in the mountains or settled 

 valleys of Mexico. 



So far as the meager water supply of Papagueria permits, the 

 household gods are enshrined about permanent springs; but, 

 since the family groups many times outnumber the continu- 

 ously flowing springs, rancherias are frequently established 

 about temporary springs, born of an exceptional succession of 

 storms, or even about water pockets in the bottoms of barrancas. 

 or ponds produced by single storms. Some villages in the east- 

 ern part of Papagueria were formerly located on fairly perma- 

 nent, though slender, streams heading in the Sierra, but these 

 sites have generally been taken by Mexican and American in- 

 vaders. The rancheria includes a separate dwelling for each 

 family, with one or more stock corrals, and, if the soil is fit, a 

 few truck gardens adjacent to the houses of the more enterpris- 

 ing families. The dwellings are scattered; commonly each is 

 several rods from the nearest neighboring domicile, and thus a 

 village of fifty or more houses frequently extends over the 

 greater part of a quarter-section of land. The dwelling com- 

 prises an enclosed house, with usually an adjacent shelter and 

 a cooking circle a few yards distant. The typical house consists 

 of a dome-shape framework of mesquite saplings, thatched with 

 sacaton or other coarse grass, or sometimes with leafy shrubs or 

 bushes, or even with cornstalks, the thatch being sewn to the 

 framework with slips of yucca stipes. Such a house is circular 

 or elliptical in plan, 12 to 18 or 20 feet across and 5 to 8 feet 

 high ; the roof portion is often flattened and covered with a 

 layer of earth two or three inches in thickness. The doorway is 

 a simple opening two feet or less in width and usually little 

 more in height ; sometimes a door made of sacaton lashed to 



